NFL Draft: Bears trade down, make no picks on first day

Sunday

Apr 26, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2009 at 11:31 PM

High second-round NFL draft picks are like gold. A few choices lower are mere lottery tickets. At least that’s how general manager Jerry Angelo described his rationale Saturday after the Bears went without a pick in the first two rounds for the first time since 1978 and third time in their history.

Matt Trowbridge

High second-round NFL draft picks are like gold.

A few choices lower are mere lottery tickets.

At least that’s how general manager Jerry Angelo described his rationale Saturday after the Bears went without a pick in the first two rounds for the first time since 1978 and third time in their history.

The Bears, who earlier had traded their first- and third-round picks in a package for quarterback Jay Cutler, traded their second-round pick to Seattle for third- and fourth-round picks today. In exchange for moving down 19 spots (from No. 49 overall to No. 68), the Bears added the 105th overall pick.

Angelo said there was no player left the Bears wanted that they felt was worth the 49th pick, even though the Browns drafted Georgia receiver Mohamed Massaquoi one pick later.

“At 49, we had to get a little luck,” Angelo said. “Somebody had to come to us. We thought there was a chance. It didn’t happen. They all went five or six picks before.”

Ohio State’s Brian Robiskie, the last receiver Angelo said he would have considered at No. 49, went at No. 36 to the Browns, the seventh receiver chosen. Angelo said the Bears started calling around trying to trade down after the last defensive players he wanted went off the board.

Cornerbacks Darius Butler of Connecticut and Jairus Byrd of Buffalo and defensive end Everette Brown of Florida State went at picks No. 41, 42 and 43 to the Patriots, Bills and Panthers.

Just a few spots out of the Bears reach, but well out of hand.

“There was absolutely no way we were able to make a move up,” Angelo said. “That’s the hardest place to get to in the draft, that top half of the second, because those are the best buys. Those are the players that you really get a great deal.”

Just a few picks lower, he said, were not nearly as special.

“The top part of that run was pretty good,” Angelo said, “but after that, it just kind of went away for us.

“It didn’t fall the way we wanted it to fall. It happens. You’ve got to have a little luck in the draft. We just didn’t get luck at 49. That’s not to say we’re not going to have a good draft (today), because we will.”

Angelo said he doesn’t have “visions of grandeur” and is looking for depth and starters down the road, rather than immediate contributors, with Chicago’s nine picks in rounds 3 through 7. But he said that might also have been true even if they had kept their second-round pick.

“The player we would have taken at 49, in most drafts, that’s a double,” Angelo said. “We’re not looking to hit a home run with that player, so it’s not like we missed gold. There’s no guarantee that any player we targeted was going to be special.”

Angelo did make a play for a special receiver by calling the Cardinals, who are shopping disgruntled Pro Bowler Anquan Boldin. But “again, it just didn’t come together,” Angelo said. Boldin has 6,496 yards receiving in six seasons, but wants a new contract. He has two years left on a $22.25 million deal.

Angelo said the Boldin talks are now dead.

“I would assume it is,” Angelo said. “If it was going to happen, it was going to happen (Saturday).”